"Time to Bring Emotion into Sustainability Discussion"

4/21/2011

It’s time to bring emotion into discussions of sustainable living, according to Associate Professor Patricia Hogan of the Physics Department.

“The way we have been communicating to the public doesn’t work,” said Hogan, who spoke during the University’s annual Earth Day Celebration. “Charts don’t work. Graphs don’t work. What people respond to is extremely emotional.”

The University marked Earth Day with a panel discussion on environmental responsibility and a student poster session featuring student environmental work.

Post-consumer society

As members of the Suffolk community gathered to learn about ways to go about living an environmentally friendly lifestyle Hogan discussed the need to change our self-perceived identities as “consumers.”

She was joined on the panel by State Rep. Matthew Beaton, who spoke about the need to build more sustainable housing, and Terri Goldberg, executive director of the Northeast Waste Management Officials’ Association, or NEWMO, who discussed sustainability in waste management.

“When I say to my non-major science students ‘Let’s talk about the environment,’ they say, ‘it’s too depressing,’” said Hogan. “We have trained people to be passive” about the environment.

Beaton echoed Hogan’s sentiments. “I think it is important that groups of people gather -- especially students as those coming up in the world -- and discuss this topic of sustainability. “